


In Vino Veritas, or, The Morning(s) After

by redgoldblue



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Excessive Drinking, Fluff, M/M, Pining, Scheming, Slow Burn, and extremely not slow burn, artful cutting to prevent the author having to write sex scenes, from Kono and Grace, in the words of one of my betas 'jesus christ this is fluffy', s5/6, simultaneously, you'd think i could come up with more tags for literally the longest thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 01:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redgoldblue/pseuds/redgoldblue
Summary: The first time it happens, they're both very drunk, so obviously that doesn't mean anything. And alcohol was still involved the second time, so it's fine. There's nothing here, right? Right? Oh dammit, wrong.Or, Steve and Danny are both idiots in denial and if it weren't for Kono and Grace they'd never get anything done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big shoutout to my betas for this - @ turibasil and dunedinparsley i technically could have done it without you but it wouldn't have been as good. Also big thanks to my artist, having a visual.. thing... for something I wrote......? unprecedented I love it thankyou. 
> 
> I actually had a third title for this which was 'so maybe you could stay one night or stay forever' but I decided 3 titles was too much and naming it after a song lyric was Too Much - but there is a playlist for it, https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4YrG6l4F7BCZTuHfdJZemK which includes that song despite the fact that almost none of the other lyrics apply. And it's in vaguely chronological order to the story but it's not like it's going to be incoherent if it's on shuffle. And it starts with the song it does partly because I thought it was hilarious when I was making it, and partly because I might be playing a long game which may result in a coda in the advent calendar this year. And that's more than enough about something entirely tangential to the story.

 

 

 

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” The chanting of the group around them grew louder and louder. Steve looked down at the shot glasses littering the table, then up into Danny's eyes, and wondered how exactly they'd gotten here.

 

**_how exactly they'd gotten here - a week ago_ **

 

Steve muted the government agent who was angrily admonishing them from the screen and turned to the others. “You know, we always go to each other's houses or to the Hilton for dinner. We should go somewhere new.”

“We should do a pub crawl,” Kono suggested, a mischievous edge to her voice.

Grover laughed. “You may be young enough to do that still, but no-one else in here is.”

“Hey!” Steve objected. “I could definitely still manage it.”

Danny scoffed, and Steve pulled back, faking offence. “You know what, that's it. We're doing a pub crawl. I declare it as the leader. Team bonding.”

“Yeah! High five, boss.”

Chin hit unmute on the increasingly flushed agent.

“And to recklessly endanger the capture of _our witness_!”

 

**_Morning after: The Original (1)_ **

 

Steve surfaced slowly and sleepily. The sun was uncomfortably bright, even through his bedroom curtains, and his head felt like Jerry of Tom and Jerry fame had just dropped a cartoon anvil on it and then circled around and dropped another one just to be sure. Under such circumstances, he felt he could be excused for taking a minute to realise that his bed was decidedly not empty. That is, he was occupying it, but so was another body. It took him another minute to clear his vision enough to recognise the tufts of blonde hair sticking out from under the sheets, and about 0.2 seconds after that to start panicking. What the fuck, what the fuuuuck, how the _hell did this happen_.

 

**_Grover is shamed and shameless - three pubs and two hours in_ **

 

“I havta go, Renee just texted me,” Grover said, barely bothering to disguise his smugness.

There was a chorus of “What? Nooo!” from the table. Well, mostly from Kono and Steve, but Chin chipped one in too. Danny leant across the table to grasp melodramatically at Grover's shirt.

“No, Lou, don't leave me,” he cried. “You're the only other sane person in this establishment!” He managed to get out 'establishment' with almost no slurring, but his alcohol ingestion was already showing in his even-more-overly-expansive-than-usual gestures.

“Sorry, Danny, I have to, she needs help with the kids.”

Steve squinted suspiciously at him. “What kinda help?”

Kono nodded at Grover. “Yeah, what kind of help could she need with Sam and Will at nine o'clock at night?”

Steve made a sudden lunge across the table and grabbed Grover's phone right out of his hand before he could react. “Ha!” he declared loudly, attracting a few looks from other customers, then started reading from the screen. “‘Hey, sweetheart, you with the team?’ ‘Yeah, I might not be able to escape for home for a while.’ ‘Have fun. I won't wait up.’” He threw the phone down on the table slightly too enthusiastically and pointed at Grover. “You filthy liar.”

“Yeah, alright, alright,” Grover acknowledged, with no trace of guilt on his face. “But I am the only one here who needs to look after kids tomorrow, the resta you can languish in your hangovers. I’m leaving.”

Danny made a desperate grab for his shirt as he got up, but Steve languidly waved his arm, managing to block Danny’s in the process, and proclaimed, “Ah, let the deserter leave. Let the deserter desert. Ha.”

“You… are not as funny as you think you are.”

 

**_Morning After: The Original (2)_ **

****

Panic was slowly pounded out of Steve’s brain by a mixture of pain and blurriness, leaving him to wonder exactly how it _did_ happen. He easily recalled everything up to Grover leaving them, albeit with a slight haze by the end, but after that…. He brought his hands up over his eyes with as little movement as possible, trying not to disturb Danny next to him, and attempted to reconstruct the events of last night.

 

 **_Chin’s a super-spy (or the others are just way too drunk) – six pubs_ ** **_and 3.8 hours in_**

They’d got rejected by a bartender who’d taken one look at them and declared, “We don’t serve pub crawls. Or any folks all rip,” and were now being led confidently down a complicated series of back alleys by Kono, who’d reassured them she would know the best way to the next pub blindfolded and drugged. Steve was leaning on Danny, who was leaning on Chin in an attempt to support the taller man.

“I rememember this line,” Danny announced with perfect diction.

“Lane?”

“I said that. I almost got killed here because of him.” He jabbed a finger into Steve’s shoulder. Steve pulled away from him, the other two straightening up as a result, and made a more detailed inspection of said ‘line’. His nose scrunched up as they turned the corner into a busier street. “Was that the time with the elephant? Because that was not my fault.”

“No, it was the ice-cream van, which was your fault.”

“How… am I to blame for all ice-cream vans playing the same tune?”

“You’re not. Probably. Can’t be sure.”

“Well then, how was it my fault?”

“If you hadn’t decided to employ your usual gung-ho attitude, _maybe_ the - completely innocent of the murder, if not of being just as needlessly aggressive as someone _else_ I could name – owner wouldn’t have decided he needed to draw on us.”

“We’re here, dudes,” Kono cut in as Steve started to defend himself.

Danny craned his head back to see the sign above the door, while Steve glanced around. “Where’s Chin gone?”

Kono paused with one foot in the door and looked behind her. “Eh, probably left,” she shrugged. “You coming?”

Danny raised a finger and adopted the stance of a general about to lead forces into battle. General Napoleon. “I am not giving in before he does,” he declared, and dutifully led his force of two inside.

 

**_Morning after: The Original (3)_ **

 

Danny’s can-do attitude was probably exactly what led to this, Steve reflected. That and their competitiveness. His memory gets a little fuzzy around that point, but he thinks Kono was still with them at the point they saw the neon lights of Honolulu’s major gay bar and decided it was an excellent idea to go in, if only because he’s fairly certain Danny and he would not have made that decision independently, no matter how many fond memories he has of his pre-Annapolis year and the gay bars on the mainland. On the other hand, they did both have a frankly astonishing amount of alcohol in their systems by that point, so it wasn’t like any decisions were being made through a clear and deliberate reasoning process. Obviously, since he was attempting to reconstruct these memories while lying in bed with an astonishingly octopus-like dead-to-the-world Danny. In any case, he does vaguely recall Danny challenging him to shots inside the bar, and him feebly protesting on behalf of their respective bodies. The next and last thing he remembers is someone telling them they were adorable as they shepherded them into a taxi, and Danny smugly replying, “Damn right I am.”  

He stared down at dusty-blonde lashes against stubbornly pale skin and wondered if he could extract himself from both Danny’s limbs and the sheets without waking him up. Maybe if he got out he could just stay in the ocean until Danny woke up and left, and they wouldn’t have to see each other again until work, with the rest of the team around. He started lifting various pieces of the entanglement with as little movement as possible. Slowly, he managed to exit the bedroom with no more than a slight and terrifying increase in Danny’s breathing, then rested his face briefly against the cool wall of the hallway and stared at the minute cracks in the paint. His pulse slowly evened out. Once his heart no longer felt like it was going to shatter his ribcage, he walked out to the lanai, his pace slowly increasing. He grabbed his swimming trunks off the seat outside and ran down to the ocean, pulling them on.

The cool water faithfully embraced him as it did every morning. He dived down further and further, feeling the currents flow past him and the blue above him block out the world. Eventually, he resurfaced and just let himself float. His lungs slowly expanded and the panic that had seized him when he’d awoken completely subsided for the first time, leaving him with nothing but a pounding headache and a craving for loco moco.

 

*******

 

Danny came abruptly into reality as he felt someone lifting one of his arms. He opened his eyes a crack, slowing down his breathing, and glanced down to see distinctly familiar, albeit more tousled than usual, dark hair attempting to move a white bedsheet. He relaxed slightly before realising the implications of the situation. ‘Freeze’ was the first, and perfectly rational, reaction his body proposed, and he went along with it until Steve had silently left the room. The sheets slid down to his hips as he sat up and put his head in the hands. This was not an ideal situation. His memories of last night only lasted up to following Kono and Steve into Bacchus, but his surroundings made a rough sketch of the rest of the night fairly clear. Kono must have either left them in there or let them walk out together and he was going to eviscerate her for that. In about a week, when his head didn’t hurt so much.

He scrubbed his hands back through his hair and wondered whether he could use Steve’s coffee machine before he came back in. Assuming that he actually had gone out to swim and wasn’t just standing outside the door waiting for him to come out. No, he could just get coffee on the way back to his place. He got up and started collecting his clothes, then walked out, relieved to find that Steve didn’t seem to be in the house. He walked out the back and looked out to sea, checking that the wreck of a man had actually gone to swim rather than just having a complete freakout and running away to Istanbul or somewhere equally ridiculous. Danny waited for what felt like both hours and no time at all, staring out, before he saw a distant figure emerge from underwater to float on their back. He sighed, and left.

 

**_The morning after the morning after – criminals persist in working weekends, even when the cops would rather not_ **

****

“Where’re Steve and Danny?”

Kono groaned. She was bent over the computer table in what looked like a very awkward position, forehead resting on the cool screen. “Quiet, please, cuz.”

Chin regarded her with silent amusement, but lowered his voice as he continued. “They should’ve got called first, hey?”

“Maybe they’ve both just said ‘fuck it, let crime continue’ and stayed in bed. Seems like a rational choice to me.”

An entirely too loud chuckle came from the doorway, and Kono lifted her head enough to stare daggers at Grover.

“Should’ve listened to me, huh?” he asked smugly, ignoring the venom in her eyes.

“You know what, if you’re going to be like that you can just leave and let us solve this…” She glanced quickly at the screen, then winced at the sudden movement. “Ow. And let us solve this double homicide by ourselves.”

He grinned at her and went to stand beside Chin, who was scrolling through the report from HPD.

“The boys not here yet?”

“Mmm. No.”

“They were still going when I left,” Kono informed them. “I reckon they slept through the call.”

“Well, alright, I guess we do this without them, at least until they deign to turn up. Where’s the scene?”

“Over in Waialua,” Chin answered.

“Let’s get going, then.” They all looked over at Danny, standing in the doorway.

“Hey, Williams, nice’a you to join us. Will McGarrett be coming or not?”

“What? I don’t know,” Danny answered just a little too quickly. “How would I know what Steve’s doing? Are we heading to Waialua or not?”

“Yeah, alright, calm down, man.”

“I’m calm.”

Kono squinted at him, but followed everyone out in silence.

 

*******

 

“Okay, Danny, you check out the mother. I’m going to go get the security footage from the bank. Everyone else, work on getting through those files.”

Everyone else made varying noises of affirmation, and Danny left through the front door, and Steve through the side.

Kono waited until the doors closed behind them, then turned to Chin and Grover. “They’re being weird, right, it’s not just me?”

“They’re being weird,” Chin echoed.

“Yeah. Weird.”

“Do you think something… happened last night?”

Chin raised an eyebrow at her, a slightly disbelieving tilt to his gaze.

“What do you mean?” Grover asked.

“Well, I left them together. Drunk. In a gay bar. I’m just saying, maybe the sexual tension finally became too much for them.”

“You mean… surely not. That would be an ignominious climax.”

“Ignominious?” Chin asked, humour laced through his voice.

Grover winced. “Will’s making me test him on SAT vocab.”

“Danny did seem cagey when he came in,” Chin said to Kono.

“Exactly! Maybe they didn’t actually _sleep_ together, but _something_ definitely happened. The only problem is, now we have to get them to acknowledge it.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Grover took a step back from the table and raised his hands in front of him. “We? Since when are we interfering with the bosses’ love lives?”

“How about since they became a singular love life and that’s gonna make them tremendously awkward at work until it’s resolved?”

He frowned at her, but lowered his hands and stepped back. “You do what you like, but I’m not going to be involved.”

“Fine. Chin?”

“I’ll go along with you,” he started slowly. “But I’m not willing to actually manipulate them either.”

Kono huffed out a breath. “You two are useless. Remind me to call Grace, she’ll help. Now, how are we going to split these files?”

 

**_It’s been two weeks, and scheming is so far unsuccessful – but things are looking up. Or down. Or round and round. A little hurricane joke for you all._ **

****

Grover returned to their table, carrying a tray of drinks. “Alright, beers for Williams and Kalakaua, scotches for me and McGarrett, this… concoction for Kelly-” Chin accepted the tall orange glass with a small smile. “And lemonades for the younger Williamses.”

Grace leant over to grab them, and placed Charlie’s in front of him as Grover slid back into his seat.

“Is everyone good for the hurricane tomorrow?”

“We’re back with Mom, and she’s out of the path. Anyway, Danno’s safe.”

Chin raised an eyebrow at Danny, who nodded. “Another benefit of the new apartment – it hasn’t been in a hurricane path since 1994. You?”

“I’m on the edge. Going to stay with Kono and Adam, just to be safe.”

“Good.”

Kono frowned. “Boss?”

Steve looked up from where he’d been inspecting the bottom of his whisky glass, searching for the secrets of the universe. Or at least his own universe. “Hmm?”

“You’re in the evac zone, aren’t you? Anyway, with the beach…”

“Yeah,” he answered, uselessly hoping that the inevitable next question was in fact… evitable?

“Where’re you going? I’d offer my place, but Chin’s already taking up the couch.”

“I’ll get a motel room.” Since Danny didn’t seem inclined to offer, and he honestly wasn’t sure he’d want to go there anyway. Literally or figuratively. Not yet, no matter that he still couldn’t remember the actual event.

“Hey, if you haven’t got one yet, you might not be able to. They’ll all be booked up with evacs. Danny, don’t you have space?”

God. He loved Kono, really he did, but if anyone had ever mentioned the concept of dropping a subject to her, she’d had surfer’s ear that day.

“It’s fine,” he started, but he was interrupted by Gracie.

“Yeah, you can stay in my room.” He must have looked discomfited by that, because she chuckled and continued, “Don’t worry, we got a new bed for it a few months ago, and it’s a full double. And not bright pink, although personally I think you could pull that off, Uncle Steve. Don’t you think, Charlie?” she asked, nudging her little brother in the side.

Charlie glanced up from his close study of erosion by way of a model utilising a single ice cube and a plastic straw. He nodded vigorously in reply, although Steve doubted he’d actually been listening.

He grinned at them despite himself. “Thank you. I think so too.”

“So that’s that then. Right, Danno?”

Danny shrugged. “I suppose so.”

Their eyes locked for a moment across the table. Something flashed in Danny’s, but before Steve could figure out what it was, he’d looked away and launched into a fast patter regarding Jerry’s latest conspiracy theory, leaving Steve to stare at his profile, sipping his drink.

 

**_Hurricane Eve so far right on track for tonight, and Danny’s stalwart Steve-avoidance plan decidedly off-track_ **

****

Danny waved an arm in the direction of Grace’s room as they walked in. “You know where everything is. I’m going to put dinner on.”

Steve slung his bag over his shoulder and headed in the right direction as Danny moved to the kitchen. He started pulling out pots and pans, making as much noise as he could to drown out the guilt chirping in the back of his brain over how short he’d been to Steve all evening. He didn’t deserve that. Hell, neither of them deserved that, just so Danny could keep himself at arms length from any memory of That Night.

 

The berating monologue running in his head was interrupted by the man himself appearing in the doorway. He proceeded to hover there until Danny took pity on both of them and leant over to wrap a hand around his wrist, pulling him in. He handed him a knife and directed him to the other side of the kitchen island.

“Here,” he directed, pulling out another board and a bunch of carrots. “Start chopping while I flour the veal.”  

He did as told, and they worked in a silence broken only by the thud of the knife on the board. After a few minutes of this, Steve looked up at Danny.

“Thank you for letting me stay here. I know it’s-”

“Shut up,” Danny cut him off, with no heat. “Grace would never have forgiven me. I would never have forgiven me. That’s enough carrots, you can do the potatoes now.”

He avoided looking at Steve, focusing intensely on the peas he was shelling, until he felt Steve’s steady gaze move back to his task.

 

*******

 

“Look. Look!” Danny pointed firmly into the mid-distance, attempting to articulate his point over Steve’s muffled giggling. “My point. My point is. That. My point is that you are entirely too… too confident about your abs, and that is the reason why I’m anti-military.”

“Oh, I see, it’s because of my abs?”

Danny tried and failed to restrain laughter at Steve’s equally failed attempt to look serious. “No. It’s because of your attitude towards your abs.”

Steve reached a hand out for the half-empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the table without bothering to look over for it. After a few pats of the table, he grasped it and refilled both of their glasses. Danny had brought it out in equal parts as an attempt to loosen them both up slightly and to distract Steve from the imminent danger of water damage to the majority of his belongings. It had achieved all desired results. Perhaps a little too effectively, since the conversation had somehow ended up at Steve’s muscles. Which were very attractive. Not that there was any way Danny was going to admit that out loud.

“My ab…dominals are good, and I know it,” Steve continued. “What’s wrong with that?”

“No-one should have that firm an opinion about their own abs. Can we please stop saying abs?”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Let’s move on. What about my biceps?”

Danny threw a cushion at him.

 

***

 

Steve stretched his legs out, pushing against Danny’s hip. He was taking up most of the couch, back against one arm, while Danny was sitting in the remaining space at the other end with his legs folded up underneath him. A warm buzz was running up the length of his spine, courtesy of the alcohol, and possibly Steve’s presence next to him.

“Danny,” Steve muttered, bringing Danny out of his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“Give it. Give it here,” Steve said, gesturing to the bottle in Danny’s hand. Danny passed it over, grumbling.

“You get bossy when you’re drunk.”

“You love it.” He swirled the last of the amber liquid contemplatively.

Danny scoffed. “I do not- Hey!”

He peered at him guiltily over the top of the bottle.

“That’s my scotch you’re about to drink the last of, let go-” Danny clambered over Steve’s legs, reaching out for the bottle. Laughing, Steve held it up over his head, leaving him to curse his inconvenient height as he struggled for a foothold on the soft cushions. Eventually he gave up and dropped down. He’d have to bring it down to drink it anyway. Sure enough, Steve started to cautiously lower his hands.

“Aha!” Danny exclaimed, and lunged, getting one hand around the other side of the bottle, fingers overlapping with Steve’s. That brush of warmth was enough to make him realise that he was sitting in Steve’s lap, leaning over so their chests were pressed together. In fact, their hands were just about the only part of them that hadn’t already been touching, and suddenly every point of contact felt like it was blazing, so much sensation coming through that it bordered on numbness. Losing his breath, he lowered his gaze from the bottle and their joined hands to Steve’s face. His pupils were blown wide and his lips were slightly parted and as Danny dropped his head, he moved up to meet him halfway. There was a crash as the bottle dropped from their hands, sounding as if it was coming from a million miles away. A small part of Danny’s brain took a moment to contemplate whether he should stop and clean the glass up, but the rest of him ignored it in favour of pulling Steve off the couch, sliding his hands down over his hipbones, and leading him up the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**_The morning after is back – and this time it’s personal_ **

 

This time, Danny woke up first, muttering silent curses, and woke Steve up as he crawled out of bed. They stared at each other and made the decision that neither one of them was saying a word until they’d had coffee.

 

“You’ve done that before,” Steve mumbled, coffee cup almost entirely covering his face.

Danny blinked at him, still slightly bleary and moderately hungover, which was what he blamed for his response being, “Sex? Yes, Steven, I am a 40-year-old divorced father, not exactly a blushing virgin.”

Steve snorted into his cup. “Would never accuse you of that, Danno. No, sex with a guy.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, apart from you last time, which didn’t really count since neither of us can remember anything. I had a few boyfriends before Rachel, and I’ve gone a couple dates with guys since then. Just, none of them have lasted since I moved here so-” Danny realised he was rambling and abruptly shut up.

“Hmm,” was the only reply he got.

There was another moment of silence, just long enough for Danny’s brain to start sinking down a whirlpool of its own creation and his stomach to start churning in a way that felt distinctly less like pretty butterflies and a lot more like beige, furry, blocking-out-the-light-exactly-when-you-need-it moths. Before he could be completely sucked down with the moths like one big Indiana Jones style lepidopteran tornado, Steve shifted on his feet and placed his empty mug on the bench with a clatter.

“This – these – were a mistake, right? We should just forget the last three weeks ever happened and go back to normal. Yeah?”

The moths in Danny’s stomach collapsed as if he’d swallowed knockout gas. “Yeah,” he agreed easily, not letting the strange mix of unidentifiable emotions break through his voice. “Go back to normal.”

Had it really only been three weeks? Not important.

“Good. Yeah.” Steve hovered in place for a minute, a strange look on his face, then turned around and moved his mug to the sink. “So, what do you think about the landlord?”

“Ugh. I think I’d rather not think about work until I’m at least slightly more awake. But also, he’s definitely guilty. Of something. Being a creep, if not murder.”

 

Danny has always prided himself on his powers of denial, but turns out having slept with someone he then has to see almost every day might be the breaking point even for him.

****

**_But hey, at least the hangover’s entirely gone_ **

Danny and Chin skidded to a halt at the edge of the wharf as their suspect threw himself off the edge. Steve, naturally, did no such thing, instead choosing to throw his shirt off behind him, drop his gun, and dive straight in after him. They watched him quickly catch up, and start to drag the suspect back to them.

“Has he been doing that more often?” Danny asked absentmindedly, attempting to quash any feelings about the sight of Steve’s tattoos flashing in and out of view.

“Hmm?”

“Taking his shirt off for unnecessary heroics.”

Chin glanced sideways at him. “He seems the same level of show-off as always to me,” he commented mildly.

Steve pulled himself and the suspect up onto the wharf, and Danny deliberately avoided looking at the water beading on Steve’s chest as he went to Miranda the poor sodden probably-thief.

 

**_Some of their cases are very strange, and Kono couldn’t possibly have made this happen, right? Right?_ **

****

“So he may not have been the thief, but he did have information. Why are you so against information?”

Danny scoffed. “I am not against information, I am against cowboy hats.”

“If we turn up at a Western-themed bar like this, he’s going to immediately notice us. Hats lead to information.”

“And what happens when he inevitably notices us anyway because our faces are on the news every other month?”

Steve sighed. “It’s either this or you wear Kono’s shirt.”

Danny looked over at Kono and her flannel monstrosity. She winked at him, and he mirrored Steve’s sigh and looked down at the hat sitting on the table.

“Just trust me, Danny, it’s gonna be fine.”

“Uh-huh. Tell me another one, cowboy.” Danny drawled, looking up at him through thick lashes, and Steve was really hoping no-one else noticed the distinct hitch in his breath. Danny put on the hat and immediately tilted the brim, smirking at him from underneath, and Steve was fairly sure his lungs had just abandoned ship altogether. Sound faded back in from outside as Kono started saying something about the man currently sitting in their dungeon, and he blinked and broke his gaze to turn to her, hoping Danny hadn’t noticed anything.

 

**_Puns about wood are valiantly not made_ **

****

Danny was trying extremely hard not to ogle Steve for more reasons than one, but the wretch was making it really hard. The entire team was over at his house helping him repair the living room after the latest personal shoot-out. He really should have just begged out, but here he was, sitting on the couch waiting for his knee to forgive him for the heavy lifting, and completely failing to avert his gaze from Steve’s biceps bulging underneath his t-shirt sleeves as he did… something involving wood that Danny couldn’t focus on for long enough to figure out.

Someone knocked gently on the top of his head and he started. “Hey, Danny, you good to help me paint?” Kono asked, a definite smirk in her voice.

He stretched his leg out, testing it, and nodded. “Give me a hand up, and I can help.”

She obediently extended a hand, and led him over to the opposite corner. “Sure you wouldn’t rather be helping Steve?” she asked, layers of suggestion in her tone.

“What are you talking about?” he retorted weakly.

“Oh, nothing.”

 

*******

 

The day had gotten progressively hotter and more oppressive as it went on, and as the tasks they were doing got more difficult. Steve was sorely regretting their lack of forward planning in that regard. It was late afternoon now, and everyone had left their shirts in the corner of the room. Kono was left in a bra that she kept threatening to shed as well, the threats being met with protest from everyone but Adam. In theory, it should have been good for productivity, since even Danny had admitted that they would all have been risking heatstroke if they’d kept them on. And they were on the last fix-ups now, but Steve was pretty sure his personal productivity had taken a nosedive as soon as they made the simultaneous unspoken decision. He wasn’t used to seeing Danny without a full collared shirt, goddamnit, and the uniqueness of the situation was entirely responsible for why he had had to co-opt Grover to work on the opposite wall, facing away from Danny, in order to get anything done. But now all the things left were on the same stretch of wall, and he had no choice but to go stand between Danny and Kono, who – and she was on paperwork for the next month for this – had refused to take the subtle hints to switch places with him, instead chattering to Chin, on her other side, with just a little too much enthusiasm. So now he was filling in holes next to Danny, and Danny was stretching up to reach a spot above his head, and Steve was desperately resisting the urge to throw away his scraper and put his hands right at that spot above his hipbones, over the long muscles there. He could remember exactly how it would feel, remember holding Danny’s waist as he stretched and clung to the headboard above him, and there was heat radiating off Danny that surpassed the heat rolling in from outside, and-

Steve blinked rapidly and turned his head to the side, flattening his palm against the wall. There was a quiet thump as he put his scraper down on the table, and Danny turned. “Where are you going?” he called after him.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he bit out, heading for the door.

 

**_There’s a lot of emotions going on here but at least one of them is an ardent desire for better subconscious control_ **

****

Danny drifted awake and coughed. His face was buried in his pillow, the sheets twisted around him. He pulled them off and sat up, then cursed as he realised what had woken him up. He glanced downwards, and cursed even more vigorously as the exact dream which had preceded it came back to him. God. There’d been nothing for a week, and he’d actually almost thought that it had ended, that he’d managed to get rid of the electric thrills when Steve brushed against him and the rising heat that was part annoyance, part attraction, whenever Steve did- well, almost anything really. Apparently he’d only pushed it down until it burst out of his subconscious at dawn in a dream with no discernible plot or action. Well, maybe there had been some semblance of reason to it when it was happening, but now it had receded into a vague red cloud of touch and heat. He put his head in his hands and sighed. It was all very well to say ‘hey, let’s go back to normal,’ but if there was one thing Danny Williams had learnt over his life it was that his subconscious had a mind of its damn own, and when it got stuck on something there really was no getting it off. And right now, it had got stuck on his partner. The problem was, he had no idea what to do about it.

 

**_Apparently the face of God is a grumpy Daniel D. Williams_ **

****

Steve dived into the ocean, then surfaced and shook his hair out of his face. He flipped onto his back and watched the gradually lightening sky. His eyes unfocused, and before he knew it the yellow halo on the horizon had transformed into blonde hair, and below it, yep, there was Danny staring at him from the sky like some disapproving figurehead. Fucking hell. He muttered something annoyed in its general direction, then turned over and started moving, cutting smoothly through the clear blue. The ocean had always been his cleanser, the place where he could wash away his emotions and see things clearly. If that was taken away from him… He shook his head and concentrated on clearing his mind, focusing on the light shining through the water in front of him, and the feel of it flowing past him. After savoring the stillness for a few minutes, he took a deep breath, and made a deal with himself to think about what he’d officially started labelling as The Thing for a while, as being preferable to it just attacking him at random. Every time Danny had brushed past him, or stood next to him at the computer table, or looked at him with his tongue just stuck out the corner of his mouth… the last two weeks it felt like he hadn’t been able to focus on anything else. He’d honestly thought he could just ignore it, put it all in the past – it’s not like he hadn’t had enough practice doing that in the Navy, and he didn’t want to wreck what they had, didn’t want to let in any reason for Danny to leave- He cut that train of thought off. That was a dark pit of his own mind and he knew it and he wasn’t going there. But the fact remained that his compartmentalization techniques had miserably failed in the face of Danny Williams, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Except talk to him. He hated it, but he had to talk to him.

 

**_Teenage crushes and frankly, teenage wimp-outs_ **

****

Danny pushed open the door to Steve’s house and strode determinedly into the kitchen before realizing Steve didn’t seem to be there. He could be upstairs, but houses with a Steve in them felt different to those without, and currently this house felt distinctly empty of Steves. He ducked out to check the lanai, then perched on the desk inside and pulled out his phone. There was a clatter and a muffled curse immediately from the other end of the line, then Steve’s distracted voice. “Yeah?”

“Oh, that’s a way to greet the person who keeps you alive on a daily basis.”

Steve sighed, then put something down with a clunk. “Hello, Danny. How are you tonight? May I enquire as to the purpose of this call?”

Danny grinned. “I’m well, thank you. I’m sitting in your house and was wondering where you are, considering you’re the one who asked me to come over.”

“Oh, shi- I’d forgotten that. Yeah, no, it’s fine,” he continued, pre-empting Danny’s willing offer to leave. “I’m just in the garage.”

Danny pushed himself up and wandered out. “Why are you out there at-” He pulled the phone away from his ear to check. “-7 o’clock at night?”

“I’m a grown adult who wanted to check something on the car?”

“7pm is not a sensible time to do that,” he advised, hanging up as he walked into the garage. “Hey,” he said out loud. Steve slid out from under the car, shirt covered in grease stains and sleeves rolled up to sit above his tattoos. Danny was struck with a visceral memory of a teenage crush on the son of their mechanic, a cocky smile of a type he was now all too familiar with and surprisingly skilled kisses at the back of their garage, pressed against someone’s car. He could still clearly recall the tilt of his lips, see the angle of his raised eyebrow and the fresh green of his tattoos. Oh god, he had a type.

“Hey,” Steve replied, standing up, patting over his body in search of a pocket to put his phone in, realizing he had none, going to put it down on the bench, noticing it was covered with tools, and finally electing to just hold it. “Inside?” he asked, gesturing with the phone, and Danny was reminded that his type also seemed to include ‘moron’. Or maybe Steve was an outlier in that regard. No, actually, remembering Rachel, and Ricky Bonaducci, that was just his type.

He extended a hand in the direction of the door. “After you. I hope you’re planning to change that shirt before dinner,” he tossed after him, drawing the garage door closed behind him.

 

*******

 

“Hey.” Steve tapped Danny’s shoulder and handed him a plate and a fresh beer, seeming to jolt him out of whatever reverie he’d been in. He turned and took the food, smiling up at him, and Steve was struck anew by the way that smile seemed to light up everything around him. Oh man, he was in trouble.

“So,” Danny started as Steve took the seat next to him. “Why did you ask me over? I mean, I’d assume it was just for the joy of my charming company, but you did say you wanted to talk about something.”

“Yeah.” He’d been half-hoping Danny had forgotten that part of the conversation. “Uh. You get Richards over to HPD alright after I left?”

Danny raised his eyebrows. “I trust that wasn’t it, but yeah. Duke handled their end of the transfer paperwork before his shift ended.”

“Good. That’s good.”

They lapsed into silence, Danny watching him closely as they ate but letting the silence continue until Steve was ready. He appreciated it in a way, but he also knew all too well that Danny could prattle endlessly if he genuinely wanted to give Steve time to think, and that the silence was likely a calculated move to get him to talk. If he’d been in a more regular mood, he would’ve taken the challenge and stayed silent until Danny started talking, but today he could feel all the words not being said as if each one was a 5-ton weight being placed on his shoulders.

“I wanted to…”

Danny raised his eyebrows and made a rolling motion with his hands, bidding him to continue.

Steve dug his nails into his palm and winced internally. “I wanted to see if you wanted to come over with Grace and Charlie this weekend. You’ve got them, right?” God, he was a wimp.

Danny’s lips quirked, his expression of the ‘yeah sure let’s pretend that’s what you meant’ variety, and Steve really wanted to make a comment about how Danny had faces just as much as he did, on top of his tones. “Grace, yeah. Charlie’s at sleepaway camp. She’d love to come, though, she’s been missing… your beach.”

Steve laughed, half from relief. “Wow. Cruel.”

Danny reached out and clinked bottles with him. “That’s me, babe.”

 

 

**_You’ve seen ‘scheming,’ now get ready for: scheming galore!_ **

****

“Hey, monkey.” Danny extended one arm for Grace to step into a hug, and waved goodbye to Stan with the other hand as he stepped into the HQ lift.

“Hi, Danno,” she muttered into his shoulder, then stepped back.

“Sorry about having to be here, I know it’s boring. I just gotta finish up the paperwork on the Keolani case, Chin’s got the day off and apparently no-one else here knows how to fill out a HPD form.”

She laughed. “It’s fine, I’ve got my laptop, and Kono usually lets me use the big computer anyway.”

He squinted at her suspiciously. “Does Chin?”

“You said he wasn’t here!” She winked at him and walked into the main area, leaving him to _hrmph_ at her back and go to his office.

 

“Aunty Kono, hey!”

Kono turned around from the computer, wide grin on her face. “Grace!” She peered over Grace’s head, waiting for Danny’s office door to shut behind him, then looked back at her. “I hear you two are spending the night at Steve’s?”

“Mmm-hmm. He asked us. Well, he asked Danno the other night if we wanted to.”

“Oooh.” She pulled Grace over to the couch and sat down with her. “Why, do you think?”

She waggled her eyebrows. “What, he couldn’t just be missing me?”

Kono shrugged. “Hey, that’s why I was asking.”

“No,” she laughed. “I saw him last time, at dinner, there’s something else happening.”

“The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

 

*******

 

Danny emerged from his office, forms safely sent to HPD, to see Grace sitting with her legs pulled up on the couch, facing Kono, both of them giggling like 12-year-olds.

“Hey, what’s going on and why do I feel like I should know about it?” he joked, surprised when both of them immediately turned to him and adopted serious expressions. After a moment, Grace smiled at him and stood up, grabbing her bag.

“Nothing, Danno. We going to Steve’s now?”

“Uh, yeah. Got all your stuff?” He stared hard at Kono over her shoulder as she checked, but Kono just stared straight back and shrugged. Which, really, what had he expected? The staring contest was interrupted by Grace looping her arm into his.

“Yep, I’ve got everything, let’s go.”

“Alright,” he muttered, and let her lead him out of the building.

 

 

**_Uncle Steve to the rescue – some ungodly hour of the morning, but that shouldn’t bother crazy ex-SEAL types. Even if they are now in their 40s and insomniac._ **

 

Steve jolted awake to a muffled scream from the guest room and was out of bed with his gun in his hand and stealthing his way down the corridor faster than you could say ‘super ninja SEAL’. He turned into the room only to see Grace lying on her stomach, still asleep, legs kicking. He shoved the gun into a not entirely safe position down the back of his pyjama pants, re-engaging the safety as he did, and knelt down next to the bed. “Gracie. Gracie, wake up,” he said quietly, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Wake up, sweetie.”

She stilled, then rolled over and opened her eyes, tears hinting at the corners and looking terrified. “Uncle Steve.” She sat up, swung her legs over the side, and grabbed hold of Steve, burying her head in his chest and shaking slightly. He immediately brought his arms up around her and rocked her gently, his head resting on top of her tangled hair. “It’s alright, Gracie, it was just a nightmare. It’s fine, you’re safe. I’m here and Danno’s just downstairs. Do you want me to go get him?”

She lifted her head off his chest and hesitated, then shook it. “No, don’t wake him up, he’s been having trouble sleeping. But could you stay here a bit longer?”

“He wouldn’t mind, but sure, of course I’ll stay.” He smiled at her. “Can I come sit up on the bed with you though? It’s not that comfortable down here.”

She nodded, and he pulled out his gun, dropped the clip into his hand, and placed them both on the bookshelf next to the bed, then sat with his back against the headboard as Grace settled beside him, grateful that Danny had convinced him months ago that “-if this is actually going to be a guest room, Steven, you need at _least_ a double bed, not this ditzy kid’s – wait, is this _actually_ Mary’s old bed?”

“Do you want to tell me about the dream?” Steve asked, because hey, he might have emotional issues up the wazoo, but he could talk about them if it helped Grace.

She looked at him. “No,” she said after a moment. “But can we talk about something else?”

He held back a sigh of relief. “Sure, sweetheart. What do you want to talk about?”

She bit her lip and thought for a while, then turned and grinned up at him with a terrifying twinkle in her eye. “You kissed Danno yet?”

Steve was fairly sure he’d never choked on thin air before that moment, and was also fairly sure that was not something the Navy’s finest were supposed to do.

 

**_Danny’s specialty - almost-silent almost-freak-outs_ **

 

Danny blinked one of the weirdest dreams he’d had in a while out of his head and looked down at himself to check that he was not, in fact, wearing a leotard and tutu. He was fairly sure that if he could ascertain that he wasn’t, then it was probably safe to assume that the rest of the team plus the Governor also weren’t. Once he’d determined that he was actually wearing one of the pairs of pyjama pants Steve ostensibly owned for himself, even though he never actually wore them and they would have been suspiciously short on him, and one of the t-shirts he kept at Steve’s place for the multiple times he had to stay over so he could keep an eye on Steve post-concussion, or vice-versa, he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

He had a pounding headache, which he blamed on Steve for exhausting both him and Grace last night to the point where not only did he not feel safe driving home and ended up on his couch, but also fell asleep on said couch with his headphones still on and his neck in one of the singularly most uncomfortable positions known to humankind. By extension, he also blamed Steve for the fact that he was up, showered, dressed, and in the middle of making coffee before he realised that the sun was well and truly up yet neither Steve nor Grace were. He blinked, set the ground coffee down, and jogged upstairs to check in Steve’s bedroom, then in Grace’s. He was presented with the sight of Grace curled up and Steve slouched in a half-sitting position behind her with his head on his chest, both asleep. He sighed in relief, then promptly felt his heart melt as he registered the protective position Steve must have originally been in: the hand he had on Grace’s shoulder, and the way she had her back pressed against his side. Steve stirred and lifted his head up blearily. He took a moment to realise where he was, then smiled at Danny and gently lifted his hand off Grace. With as little disturbance as he could, he slipped out of the bed and tiptoed around to the other side.

Grace’s eyelids flickered and she murmured something. “It’s alright, Gracie, go back to sleep,” Steve whispered while smoothing the blanket down over her shoulders. She huffed out a breath and turned onto her stomach, and Steve smiled down at her. Danny watched the entire thing with a lump in his throat approximately the size of his heart, an achy feeling in his sternum, and a creeping fear in his mind that he might be in serious trouble. Steve grabbed Danny’s arm as he walked out of the room, snapping him out of it.

Danny turned around, gently closing the door behind him and following Steve down the stairs. Once they were safely in the kitchen and Steve had picked up the coffee making where Danny had left off, Danny had managed to wall those feelings off to contemplate some other time.

“What happened with Grace?” he asked, guilty for not having asked that as soon as he could have.

“She had a nightmare last night,” Steve replied, his voice still slightly blurred from sleep. “I heard her and went in,” he preempted Danny’s next question, “and she told me to let you sleep if I’d stay there.”

He nodded and leant around Steve to get two mugs out of the cupboard. Steve turned to face him and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, then shook his head slightly and poured the coffee. Danny raised an eyebrow at him and he shiftily rubbed at his stubble, then put his mug down. “I’m gonna go swim.”

Danny snorted doubtfully, but let him go.

 

The rest of the morning passed fairly peacefully for all concerned parties, with only one small start when Grace came down an hour or so later yawning, hugged Danny and Steve, and announced, “Uncle Steve, I put your gun back in your room.”

Steve’s “Thanks, Gracie,” was almost entirely drowned out by Danny’s horrified screech.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Dad, the clip was out, and I didn’t even touch the trigger or the barrel.”

Danny sputtered, and rounded on Steve, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You! This is your fault!”

“What, that your daughter knows proper weapon safety procedures? Guilty as charged,” Steve replied, smirking at him and casting a conspiratorial look at Grace, who smiled back.

“You – you – you,” Danny attempted, then gave up and just grumbled indistinctly.

 

***

 

Grace walked out onto the lanai and sat down on the steps leading down to the garden. After a moment spent just staring out, she pulled out her phone and dialed Kono. A picture of her standing next to a surfboard with an extremely fake smile that Grace had dug up to tease her with from an old surf competition website came up as it rang. She picked up, and Grace brought it up to her ear.

“Hey, Grace, what’s up?”

“Well, Uncle Steve’s been teasing Danno with me all day, so that’s good.”

“Yeah, they must be in a better state. You just ringing to update me, or…?”

“Oh, sorry, are you doing something? Should I call back?”

“No, no, it’s fine!” There was a voice in the background, and she said, “Shut up, Adam. It’s Grace. Yeah. Sorry, Grace, he’s waiting for a phone call and he’s being annoying.” More muttering from the background, and she returned, “Yes, I love you too. Now go away and let me talk to her.”

Grace kicked her legs out and laughed. “Uncle Adam okay?”

“Yeah, he says hello. Now, were there plans afoot?”

“Well, Dad’s been getting sorta fidgety around Steve, and I think he’s going to get us to leave in a bit – so I was thinking, do you wanna come over? Because I think I can convince him to stay if it’s because you’re giving me a brushup on surfing. Which I do need, I fell off three times last time I surfed.”

“Sure, sounds good! Steve’s got a board there, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Alright, so I’ll bring mine, my spare for you, and Adam’s for Danny. Maybe if we get him in the water he’ll get grumpy enough about that he’ll forget he’s supposed to be jumpy with Steve.”

“Oh, definitely. I’ll check with Danno, then text you?”

“Cheers, sis. See you later.”

“Bye.”

 

“Hey, Grace,” Danny called as she padded in off the lanai, stuffing her phone into her pocket. “Are all your things packed? We should probably get going soon.”

“Uh.” She continued walking, into the kitchen, and Danny got off the couch to follow her. “Well, yeah, they are, but-”

Steve handed her a glass from the cupboard next to where he was leaning with one hip propped against a counter, waiting for the kettle to boil, and she turned to the sink. “I was wondering if we could stay here for the rest of the day? If it’s alright with Uncle Steve.”

Danny glanced at Steve, who made some complicated shrugging movement that Danny translated as either ‘it’s fine with me’ or possibly ‘there are five unidentified hostiles on the south side of the building’, then reached for the kettle.

“Well…”

Grace turned around and shot him with the full force of her pleading expression over the glass of water.

He winced, and screwed up his face at her. “You know how to exploit my weaknesses too well. I guess as long as Steve’s happy with it.”

Steve shot a grin over his shoulder at them. “You wanna swim in a bit, Gracie?”

Grace looked sheepish. “Well, actually that was the second part. I was talking with Kono, and I haven’t surfed for a while and I’m getting rusty, and we’ve been meaning to go have a brush-up lesson, but she said I had to make sure it was okay with you, Danno, and I thought… maybe you’d be happier if it was at Steve’s beach?”

Steve brought a hand to his heart and gasped. “Oh! You _are_ only using me for my beachfront property! I am just… just cut to the core, really.”

She grinned and tackle-hugged him. “Never, Uncle Steve.”

He brought his arms up around her and smiled at Danny over her head. “Well, if you say so.”

“As long as you two don’t try to rope me into coming in, I guess that’s okay,” Danny agreed when Grace pulled away from Steve and turned to face him.

She gave a suspiciously sunny smile. “I can’t promise anything!”

 

***

 

Turns out, ‘I can’t promise anything’ meant ‘Kono’s bringing an extra surfboard and as soon as we get into the ocean we’ll be trying to get you in’. And of course, because both Grace and Steve were giving him puppy dog eyes from the water and Kono was standing behind them with a stern look on her face, he ended up in one of Steve’s spare pairs of swim shorts – more like swim trousers on him – and in the ocean. Although he did refuse to surf. For about 15 minutes. And then it was “Come on, Danny!” from Grace and,

“You’re going to get hit with a board if you don’t get with the crowd,” from Kono.

“And would that be accidental or intentional?”

“Well, I mean, it would all happen so fast, who could say?”

“Oh, fine, give me the surfboard.”

Steve cheered and high-fived Grace, and Danny grumbled something at them about only doing this under threat of serious injury and they shouldn’t be cheering because they had nothing to do with it. Steve’s predictable response was that he was perfectly willing to invoke threat of serious injury, Kono had just gotten there first.

 

*******

 

When the others finally came back in an hour after Danny had quit, complaining about the cold turn outside, he was snug and warm and definitely not gloating about it. He was also rummaging around Steve’s cupboards and fridge and kvetching to thin air about the lack of decent vegetables, which was frankly bemoanable.

“Hey, Danno,” Steve said from the doorway, interrupting his search through the bottom cupboards for potatoes.

“Where are your vegetables, babe, this is horrific. We’re having soup, because it’s literally the only thing you could make from these.” He held up a carrot to demonstrate, curling it around itself. “Horrific.”

Steve smiled softly at him, looking entirely too amused in the face of terminally ill carrots. “I haven’t gone shopping yet this week. But soup’s good. You want me to help?”

“No, no,” he replied, flapping his hands at him. “Get out. Send Grace in, she likes making the base.”

“Whatever you say.”

 

***

 

Danny was humming to himself as he moved around the kitchen, teatowel slung over his shoulder and soup spoon in hand. Something about the quiet domesticity of the scene hit Steve like someone had hurled a brick at his solar plexus. Actually, no, he’d had that happen and it was less painful. Danny replaced something in the fridge and moved back to the soup pot, and Steve shook himself out of it as he noticed him.

“Need help?” Steve asked, walking over to meet him at the stove.

“No, it’s almost done now. Are you guys playing Go Fish out there?”

“Poker. Go Fish before that.” Steve leant over Danny and stole the spoon from his hand. “Needs more salt,” he informed him.

“You cannot just use your unnatural height to taste soup that other people are cooking,” Danny retorted, grabbing the spoon back, “and then tell them that it needs – oh, you’re right, it does.”

Steve made a ‘what did I tell you?’ expression and Danny waggled the spoon at him. “It’s still rude whether you’re right or not, Steven.”

He grinned at him, something about the situation disarming all his security measures. He had to get out of this or he’d crack and just tell him everything.

“Sure you’re good by yourself?”

“Yes, I like cooking alone, without annoying helpers. Go back to your… poker fish.”

“Alright. Call me when you’re serving,” Steve said, and beat a hasty retreat.

 

Danny watched him go, shaking his head. He’d been telling the truth – he thought best when he was cooking by himself, and he had a lot to think about right now. Steve was avoiding something, he had a pretty good idea what it was, and he’d been avoiding it as well. The unbridled sexual attraction had been all very well – it wasn’t fun, but despite his reputation back at the police academy, he’d effectively ignored physical attraction a lot in his lifetime, for various reasons, one of which had been ‘I don’t want to spoil my friendship with my partner’. But there was something else there now, a slow warmth that had crept up on him bit by bit so he barely noticed it. It felt strangely unfamiliar, like an old jumper that had been pulled apart and reknitted in a different shape, but he knew what it was. He’d been in love before.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The third time, Danny stubbornly maintains, was not his fault in any way, shape, or form.

 

“I can’t believe it doesn’t even rain properly here,” Danny grumbled, looking out at the tropical rain shower which had just started.

Steve shook his head. “Nah, it’s the mainland where it doesn’t rain right. All that grey drizzle?”

“Yeah, it’s like the sky’s pouring its sewer water onto you,” Kono agreed.

“Ew.”

Chin leant across to peer out, ignoring them, and got a look that meant he would have been swearing were he anyone else. “We should leave,” he said, swallowing the last of his drink and digging in his bag for cash. “It’s gonna get real heavy real soon, and we’ll wanna be inside for that.”

“Sure you’re not just trying to get out of paying for more on your round, cuz?” Kono asked, laughing. Chin wordlessly gestured out at the sky. She followed his gaze and muttered something under her breath. “Oh, yeah, let’s go.”

“My house? It’s closest.” Steve suggested, pre-empting any suggestion they split up and each go home now. It had been a bad case – a five year old kidnapped and his fifteen year old brother, who’d borne a striking resemblance to Nahele, determined to rescue him by himself, since they’d been tossed around the foster system for years and certainly didn’t trust any authority figure. They’d both got out fine in the end, and Kono was organizing a new placement for them with an old surf buddy who’d wanted to adopt for a while. But he did not need to be alone now, and he was pretty sure the rest of the team didn’t either. Not that Kono or Grover would be alone per se, but there was a certain comfort to be gained in the company of others who had seen the exact same horrors which even the most loving spouses couldn’t emulate.

“Sounds good,” Chin replied, exchanging an understanding glance with Steve.

The bartender nodded at them as they walked out, huddled against the rain in a group which dispersed only when they reached their respective cars.

 

*******

 

Kono hovered in the front room, gaze flicking over the collection of photos on the shelf under the stairs. Somehow, she’d never really looked at these before. She picked up one of a young Grace standing on Steve’s shoulders and laughed as she imagined Danny’s panic at the sight. Come to think of it, that was probably why Steve had picked this one of them to put up. She noticed writing on the cardboard back as she went to put it down and turned it over. It read ‘The Daring Duo’ in a looping hand. She laughed again and turned another one over, of Five-0 accepting an award, to read ‘The Dream Team’ on it. Steve padded in from the kitchen holding two cups of tea and she displayed it to him. “This doesn’t look like your handwriting, boss.”

He frowned and shook his head. “It’s not.” He exchanged the photo for one of the mugs and stared at it for a few moments before rolling his eyes. “It’s Mary’s. She must have done it last time she was here. Is it on all of them?” he asked, putting it back down.

“I don’t know, I’d only looked at these two.”

Steve picked up a long shot from the side of the house of Mary half-asleep in a chair on the lanai with baby Joanie on her chest. The back read ‘the cutest darn girls’ in the same hand, and he smiled.

“You miss them, boss?” Kono asked, looking sideways at his wistful expression. He put the frame down and moved to the couch, pausing for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “You know, now that I’m talking to her again, it’s hard not seeing her. And Joanie. She promised to come out for Christmas, though.”

“Yeah.” She sat down next to him and gave him a quick half-hug. “You’ve got family here too that you can talk to, though, you know that.”

He turned to her and smiled. “I know. Mahalo. Speaking of which, Grover came in to say goodbye, but where are the others?”

“Chin’s out the back staring at the rain, he’s gone into one of his weird meditative things. I love the man but he’s real strange sometimes. Danny went upstairs, I think he’s getting a blanket?”

On cue, Danny came down the stairs, wearing a hoodie immediately identifiable as not his for two reasons – one was that it almost came down to his knees, and the other was the US Navy Academy logo on it. Kono had to restrain a cheer as she saw Steve’s face soften and brighten.

“I couldn’t find any serviceable blanket so I’m stealing this,” Danny declared. “You can have it back tomorrow morning and not a second earlier.”

“Sure, Danno,” Steve acquiesced, a little too easily. “I’ll go get your and Chin’s tea.”

 

*******

 

Chin walked in from the lanai and picked up his bag. “Hey, guys, I’m gonna go. Thanks for the tea, Steve.” He brushed a hand over Danny’s shoulder as he went by, and Steve got up to give him a quick hug.

“Bye, Chin,” Danny said as they broke apart.

“Yeah. See you in a couple days. We all deserve a day off.”

Kono clapped him on the back. “Thanks, boss,” she said, and got up to walk Chin out. After a few moments in which Steve and Danny sat in a – relatively – comfortable silence, she came back and picked up her own bag. “I should get home too, Adam’s gonna start worrying. You’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Danny reassured her. “We’re okay.”

“Alright.”

Steve got up silently and followed Kono to the door. When she turned to him, he enveloped her in a hug. She returned it, and they stayed there, almost trance-like, until a clatter came from the living room. Steve dropped a kiss on the top of her head. She chuckled slightly and reached up to ruffle his still-damp hair.

“I’ll be fine,” she reassured him. “I’ve got Adam.”

She turned back to look at him as she left, a silent message in her eyes - ‘Who have you got?’ He stayed there staring out into the warm night long after the sound of her engine died, her unspoken question hanging in the air.

 

*******

 

Steve returned as Danny walked back in from putting the dirty mugs in the sink, and they each resumed their previous positions on the couch, conspicuously close to each other but not actually touching. In the sudden silence and absence of others, Danny could feel that small space between them as if there were a network of wires strung across it and attached to all of his nerves. He watched Steve’s midnight eyes from the side, trying to find something in them that would signal anything other than ‘don’t leave’. He didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to sleep in a bed alone tonight, but more than that wanted to sleep in a bed with Steve. But the man’s face was completely unreadable, and given his wonky emotional state at the best of times, he didn’t know whether any move would just leave him kicked out on the street. Steve turned to face him and immediately dropped his gaze to a point past his shoulders. Danny shook his head. Oh, fuck it. He bridged the distance between them, placing a hand on Steve’s jaw, and softly brought their lips together. In that moment he tasted like rain and salt and the ridiculous amount of sugar he puts in his tea and… home. He tasted like home, and he’d rucked the old grey hoodie up to rest his hands on Danny’s waist, and he could feel the upward tilt of his lips. Danny wrapped an arm around him and pulled him up, and Steve broke the kiss long enough to pull the hoodie all the way off. He grinned down at him and whispered, “I got it back before the morning.”

“Oh-” Danny hit him in the side, and started to say something that was interrupted by Steve’s mouth on his. He rolled his eyes and dismissed the whole affair as they moved slowly upstairs, shedding clothing as they went.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Steve awoke to an empty bed, sheets rumpled but pillow cold, and that felt like a ten-pound boulder being dropped on his chest. Last night had been different, and he’d dared to hope that this morning would be as well. But no, they were back in this old routine, and Danny had left. He heaved a sigh and sat up despite the weight on his chest. Picking up pants from the floor, he headed for the shower. He was pretty sure he had a shirt on the staircase railing.

 

*******

 

“You know.”

Kono leant against her open front door and shrugged, pushing her hair behind one shoulder. “What an infinity stone is? How to dismantle a gun? Barack and Michelle Obama? Because the answers are kind of, yes, and I wish, in that order.”

“No,” he replied, rubbing a hand up and down his arm. “About me and Steve.”

“Ah. Sort of. Wanna come in?”

“Yes.”

 

A knock on Steve’s door broke him from the quiet routine of making coffee and breakfast. He walked out and opened the door to see Grace in exercise gear on the other side, jogging in place. He must have looked… not great, because she stopped dead as soon as she saw him.

“Uncle Steve, are you okay?”

He swore as he remembered why she was there. “We were supposed to go running, weren’t we?”

“Yeah, but it’s fine. What happened?”

He waved a hand. “Nothing. It’s… nothing.”

“Well, obviously it’s not-” She paused and sniffed the air. “Are you cooking bacon?”

“Oh, shit.” He rushed back in to the kitchen to save his burning wallow-breakfast, and Grace followed quietly behind him, shutting the door behind her. After pulling the pan off the stove, he walked back in to see her staring at the trail of clothes leading from the hoodie on the couch to Danny’s t-shirt at the top of the stairs. She pointed to said t-shirt and turned to Steve slowly. “Isn’t that Dad’s shirt? It is, right? Why… oh my god.”

“Uh.”

 

“Look, technically I don’t _know_. We just figured something happened the night of the pub crawl and it’s kept going, ‘cause you’ve been really weird around each other. Well, compared to usual.”

“We?” Danny asked.

“You do work with a team of detectives. And sometimes live with Grace, who’s basically a detective herself.”

“ _Grace_ knows?”

She spread her hands in a remarkably Danny gesture. “Again, we don’t really know anything. Except now I know there’s something. There is something, right?”

Danny groaned. “There’s something.”

 

“…And we were both really drunk, and the team had left us alone, and one thing led to another, and…”

Grace winced. “Yeah, I don’t need details, Uncle Steve.”

“No, god. Sorry. Anyway, we both ignored it, and then the night of the hurricane…”

 

“…Which was your fault, you know. I was going perfectly well avoiding it until you went and insisted he spend the night at my place.”

Kono shrugged innocently. “What can I say, we just wanted you to work it all out.”

“You did do it on purpose, you bastard! Anyway, I got us, uh, tipsier than originally intended, and…”

 

“…We agreed to forget it all and go back to normal. But then I… I realised. Something.”

“That you were in love with him?” Grace asked softly. He nodded silently, but before he could continue, her eyes widened. “Oh my god! This means that night when I asked you if you’d kissed him and you just spluttered and changed the subject, not _only_ had you kissed him, you’d… done it. Twice! It was only twice, right?”

“Yeah, it was only twice. Until…”

 

“…What happened last night. And now I don’t know what to do.”

Kono frowned at him. “Are you serious?”

He threw his hands in the air. “Yes, I’m serious! I don’t know what he’s feeling. Maybe this was all just another unfortunate incident for him.”

“God, you’re an idiot.”

 

“And I don’t know if he feels the same way.”

Grace laid a hand on Steve’s arm. “Uncle Steve, you are – and I mean this in the nicest of ways – sometimes the most unobservant person I’ve ever met.”

“You sound like Danny.”

“Well, he is my father. And as such, I know him. And believe me when I say he feels the same way.”

 

“Just tell him. Okay? Just go back to where you left him alone in his bed – which, by the way, rookie move – and tell him you love him.”

“I…”

“Look. I love you both, and because of that, if you don’t do this right now I am personally going to kidnap the both of you and hold you in a very small rendition cell until you confess your feelings.”

“Alright, fine, I’m going.”

 

*******

 

Danny stared at the rippling lines of Steve’s back as he walked out into the sea. The tropical heat felt close and oppressive, as if his ribcage were constricting. Although that might be less the heat and more the fact that all Steve was wearing was a pair of swim trunks that were ever so slightly too big for him, so they were hanging low on his hips and he could see the dips above his hipbones and remember feeling his hands scrape against the skin there and this was a bad idea. He never should have come here. Damn Kono, this was all her fault.

Steve’s head ducked beneath the water and the air stilled for a moment before he burst back out, splashing water, dark hair bouncing and strong arms reaching up and Danny’s breath caught low in his chest. He put his head in his hands and groaned as unbidden memories of those arms around him and a deep-throated chuckle above him and muscles tensing and rolling under his hands and soft lips on his shoulder flooded him. Oh god, this was a terrible idea. He should have just stayed well enough away. Still he didn’t move, frozen in place by some combination of desire and anxiety and hope. He could do this. Okay. He could do this. He was prepared. What was the worst that could happen? Steve rejected him and he lost his job and his best friend and possibly the love of his life? He’d recovered from losing his job and his best friend and the person he thought was the love of his life before. Oh, fuck.

“Danny?”

He looked up. Steve was standing in front of him, towel slung around his neck. That particular anxiety attack must have taken longer than he thought.

“Steve.” He sucked in air, and looked away from his questioning eyes. “I have something to say to you.”

“Yes?”

He could do this. He had this ready.

“Look. Look, I came to this godforsaken island fully intending to hate it and to hate every moment I didn’t spend with Grace. And it was all basically going exactly to plan until you turned up and, as usual, you wrecked it all. And yeah, that was partly because you pulled me straight into a ready-made family and out of that godawful apartment, but it was also just you and your idiot smile and the lines next to your eyes and your tendency to adopt anyone who seemed like they might possibly need help and- and how quick you are to believe the best in people even while the world keeps showing you humanity’s worst side.” He paused and took a deep breath.

“Danno-”

“No, shut up, let me finish. Grace made me need to come here but you made me want to stay. And I don’t know when I fell in love with you but I think I just absorbed it as a fact of life without ever realizing it, y’know?”

Steve shook his head mutely and Danny rolled his eyes. “No, of course you don’t, you either stay in complete denial of an emotion or you’re aware of it every moment. You have no grey areas. Anyway, you’d think waking up next to you the first time might have turned me on to it, but apparently not. The pounding in my head drowned it out.”

“That’s romantic.”

“Oh my god, shut up. I’m trying to make a speech here, you moron.”

Affection shone in Steve's eyes, easily outdoing the sunset behind him. “You don’t need to, Danno. I love you too.”

“Regardless, I had it prepared, and-” Steve’s words finally sunk in and he shut up. “Really? Like…”

Steve laughed, free and joyous. “Yeah, like that, babe.”

“Hey, babe’s my term of endearment, find your own.”

He took a step closer. “Do I have to find it right now?”

Danny mirrored his grin. “No, there’s other things you can do now. I love you.”

Steve touched his shoulder, and it sent a zing of electricity flooding through his entire body. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

 

**_The morning before the life after_ **

****

Danny’s hand curled around soft cotton, back of his fingers brushing against warm skin. He wondered vacantly how Steve had a shirt on, because he definitely had not when they’d got into bed, before the sunlight heating the nape of his neck informed him it was past ten, and if he was sleeping so comfortably next to him, the insane man must have already swum and come back to bed. He shifted at Danny’s touch, and rolled over to face him.

“Hi,” he said softly.

“Good morning. How was the ocean?”

He laughed. “Same as it usually is. You ready for breakfast?”

“Have you not eaten yet? How long have you been up? And you went swimming!”

“Calm down, nonna. I just thought you might be hungry. It’s almost lunch time.”

“Oh.” Danny would have looked sheepish if that wasn’t an expression he was so stalwartly against. “Let’s go out.”

“Really?”

“Do you want to cook? Because I don’t.”

“Kamekona’s it is.”

Danny sat up and swung his legs over the side, then paused and turned back. Steve leant forward and they kissed, long and slow and soft, before breaking apart.

“I love you,” Danny said, savouring how new the words still sounded imbued with this meaning, even after how many times they had been said last night.

“I love you. Now, food. I’m starving.”

“You haven’t eaten!”

“I had a banana.”

“That’s not breakfast, Steven!”

 

*******

 

Steve and Danny both looked up from their food at the sound of familiar voices. Danny squinted suspiciously as the entire team walked into Kamekona’s seating area. “What are you all doing here?”

“What, a group of friends can’t go to their favourite lunch place together?” Grover asked innocently.

“Not at 11am on a Sunday when we’ve just arrived.”

Grover shrugged.

“Kame rang Kono,” Chin explained. “Told her you were here and – I believe his exact words were ‘acting all lovey-dovey.’”

Danny looked sideways at Steve, who made a snap decision, pulled him closer, and kissed him. He wasn’t sure what reaction he was expecting from the team, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a gleeful cheer from Kono.

“Told you,” she crowed triumphantly. “Pay up, cuz.”

Chin sighed and brought out his wallet.

“You- you were betting against Steve and me getting together?” Danny asked, half outraged and half offended.

Kono snorted and Chin chuckled. “Ain’t nobody on the island’d take that bet, brah.”

“Nah, see, he had a longstanding bet that you two would kiss dramatically after one of you almost died, again, and that’d be how it started,” Kono provided. “Me, my money’s always been on the get drunk, have sex, be in denial for a while route. So thank you for that by the way, you’ve given me a new swimsuit. Consider it my matchmaking fee.”

“You know, I’m not sure that makes me feel any better.”

“It could have been worse,” Steve pointed out. “Chin could have won and then she would have actually made us pay for matchmaking.”

“Hmph.”

“Anyway, can we join you two lovebirds for lunch?” Grover asked, sliding onto the bench across from them. “All this emotion in the air is making me hungry.”

“Why aren’t you paying?” Steve asked as Chin and Kono took their seats.

“I broke even.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, you see, I had money down on an interference-by-others-finally-makes-you-see-the-light scheme. Chin argued that none of the interference actually had any effect, Kono said it did. We agreed on me breaking even.”

“Huh.”

“We’d have done something eventually, interference or no.” Steve argued mildly.

“Steve, I love you, but quite honestly that’s the worst lie you’ve ever told.”

Steve grinned back at him. “Love you too.”

“Aww,” came the simultaneous reaction from the team.


End file.
